to vacillate · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
wilderness
בַ֭מִּדְבָּרVa.mid.bor
H4057
a pasture (i.e. open field · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
solitary
בִּישִׁימ֣וֹןbi.shi.Mon
H3452
a desolation · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
way
דָּ֑רֶךְDa.rekh
H1870
a road (as trodden) · noun, common both genders singular absolute
found
מָצָֽאוּma.Tza.'u
H4672
properly · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
city
עִ֥יר'ir
H5892
a city (a place guarded by waking or a watch) in the wi… · noun, common feminine singular construct
dwell
מ֝וֹשָׁ֗בmo.Shav
H4186
a seat · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Deuteronomy 32:10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye…
Ezekiel 34:6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none…
Ezekiel 34:12 As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver…
Numbers 14:33 And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.
Genesis 21:14-16 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the…
Job 12:24 He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
Psalms 107:40 He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness, where there is no way.
Hebrews 11:38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 107:1-9
Here is, I. A general call to all to give thanks to God, Psa 107:1. Let all that sing this psalm, or pray over it, set themselves herein to give thanks to the Lord; and those that have not any special matter for praise may furnish themselves with matter enough from God's universal goodness. In the fountain he is good; in the streams his mercy endures for ever and never fails.
II. A particular demand hereof from the redeemed of the Lord, which may well be applied spiritually to those that have an interest in the great Redeemer and are saved by him from sin and hell. They have, of all people, most reason to say that God is good, and his mercy everlasting; these are the children of God that wer…
They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way,.... Not the people of Israel, as the Targum. These seem not to be particularly intended, whatever allusion there may be to their passage through the wilderness to Canaan's land; but rather, in general, travellers through waste places, especially the wild deserts of Arabia; where the wind blowing the sand, covers the roads with it, so that frequently travellers lose their way, and wander about, till directed to it by one providence or another. Some compare this with the case of the Old Testament saints, mentioned in Hebrews 11:37 others with the church in the wilderness, and the witnesses prophesying in sackcloth, Revelation 11:2. But it is c…
Psalm 107:1-9
1. Praise Jehovah, because he is good: because his mercy endureth for ever. 2. Let the redeemed of Jehovah say this, [273] whom he hath redeemed out of the hand of the afflicted. [274] 3. Whom he hath gathered out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south. [275] 4. They wandered from the way in the solitary desert, [276] they did not find a city of habitation. 5. Both hungry and thirsty, so that their soul fainted within them. 6. In their straits they called upon Jehovah, and he delivered them from all their afflictions. 7. And he directed them by a right way, that they might come to a city of habitation. 8. Let them praise the mercy of…
The Church Fathers
"They wandered in the wilderness, in a dry place, they found not the way of a city to dwell in" [Psalm 107:4]. We have heard a wretched wandering; what of want? "Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them" [Psalm 107:5]. But wherefore did it faint? For what good? For God is not cruel, but He makes Himself known, in that it is expedient for us, that He be entreated by us fainting, and that aiding us He be loved.
Many other monks coming from Phbow by boat reached the island, and we were three hundred in number. About the eighth hour of the twenty-sixth of the month of Athyr, Theodore called all of us and gathered us near himself, and he told Theodore the Alexandrian to interpret what he was going to say to all: "God revealed to me long ago what I have to say but told me to keep silence for a while. Now, as I was standing, I have just been ordered to say it to you, and it is this: In almost every place where the name of Christ is being preached, many of those who have sinned after holy baptism have kept the apostolic faith in which we also stand and have wept for their sins. The Lord, accepting the genuineness of their repentance, has wiped away their sins. Therefore all those among you who up to this day have wept truly over the sins committed after your baptism shall know that you have received forgiveness. Let each of you, therefore, confess to the Lord his mercies and say, You have changed my grief into joy; you have stripped off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness."
Again, prophetic language attests that the conversion of those in error is the work of God. For "they went astray in the wilderness in a thirsty land," says the Psalmist, and he adds, "So He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to the city where they dwelt:" and, "when the Lord turned again the captivity of Sion." In like manner also the comfort of the afflicted is ascribed to God, Paul thus speaking, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who comforteth us in all our tribulation." Again, the Psalmist says, speaking in the person of God "Thou calledst upon Me in trouble and I delivered thee." And the setting upright of those who stumble is innumerable times ascribed by Scripture to the power of the Lord: "Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall, but the Lord was my help," and "Though he fall, he shall not be cast away, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand," and "The Lord helpeth them that are fallen." And to the loving-kindness of God confessedly belongs the recovery of the distressed, if Eunomius means the same thing of which we learn in prophecy, as the Scripture says, "Thou laidest trouble upon our loins; Thou sufferedst men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, and Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place."
Dictionary and topics
Poetry — Has been well defined as “the measured language of emotion.” Hebrew poetry deals almost exclusively with the great question of man’s relation to God. “Guilt, condemnation, punishment, pardon,…
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Wandering — Of the Israelites in the wilderness in consequence of their rebellious fears to enter the Promised Land (Num. 14:26-35). They wandered for forty years before they were permitted to cross the Jordan…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
It has actually come to pass, the first strophe tells us, that they wandered in a strange land through deserts and wastes, and seemed likely to have to succumb to death from hunger. According to Psa 107:40 and Isa 43:19, it appears that Psa 107:4 ought to be read לא־דרך (Olshausen, Baur, and Thenius); but the line is thereby lengthened inelegantly. The two words, joined by Munach, stand in the construct state, like פּרא אדם, Gen 16:12 : a waste of a way = ἔρημος ὁδός, Act 8:26 (Ewald, Hitzig), which is better suited to the poetical style than that דּרך, as in משׁנה־כּסףp, and the like, should be an accusative of nearer definition (Hengstenberg). In connection with עיר מושׁב the poet, who…
Those who were lost in the wilderness thank God for his rescue. The wilderness might be a metaphor for leaving the path of wisdom (1:1; Prov 4:10-15).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 107:4
They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.
They wandered in the wilderness. They wandered, for the track was lost, no vestige of a road remained; worse still, they wandered in a wilderness, where all around was burning sand. They were lost in the worst possible place, even as the sinner is who is lost in sin; they wandered up and down in vain searches and researches as a sinner does when he is awakened and sees his lost estate; but it ended in nothing, for they still continued in the wilderness, though they had hoped to escape from it. In a solitary way. No dwelling of man was near, and no other company of travellers passed within hail. Solitude is a…
